Skip to main content
Main

Fish Hash

A fried dish of fish flakes and boiled potatoes with butter and optional onion.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Fish Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the cold boiled potatoes finely.

  2. In a bowl, mix the fish flakes and chopped potatoes.

  3. Add the butter and mix well.

Fry

  1. Heat pork fat or bacon grease in a skillet over medium heat.

  2. If desired, add chopped onion before frying.

  3. Add the mixture to the skillet and brown on both sides.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Potato + porktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Potato + walnuttop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together342 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Fish + porktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cold boiled potatoes
Provide the starchy base that binds the hash and crisps into a browned crust.
Fish flakes
Supply the main protein and flavor of the hash.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavor and helps browning.

The step that matters

Brown the hash on both sides. The mixture must be pressed into the hot fat and left undisturbed long enough to form a crust. Moving it too early prevents browning and makes it fall apart.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (fish, potato, walnut, butter, pork):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Lettucefits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fish, potato, walnut, butter, pork. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesFried FishFried Fish120 recipesPork CakePork Cake107 recipesRoast PorkRoast Pork82 recipes